


Walk Out of the World

by LtLJ



Category: Firefly, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Study, Crossover, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-19
Updated: 2005-10-19
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaylee falls, River follows, because nobody should be there alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Out of the World

River sees it all.

The planet has green fields and trees, and the little town is quiet and the air smells sweet, and Kaylee wants to walk while _Serenity_ steams and settles on the ground. Mal is still bargaining so they can't load cargo yet, Jayne is suspicious but River knows no one is thinking dangerous, Inara sits in the sun watching Mal, and Simon has seen some children with eye infections, and with their mother's help is trying to lure them close enough to tend. Zoe's grief is still raw and hard; River's head aches with it, so she follows Kaylee. Distracted, Mal still calls after them, "You mind you don't go too far!"

"We mind." Kaylee smiles, and stops to pick daisies.

They wander, Kaylee a little ahead, moving up a hill, toward two pillars that aren't pillars but rocks. River smells ozone, and wrinkles her nose. They're too far from the ship, from the town.

It's not until Kaylee is almost at the rocks that River's head fills with light and possibilities and something cuts through the world like a knife--

And Kaylee steps between the pillars, blue light flashes, and she's gone. Gone gone. Gone from the world. There's no death, there's no fading, she's just gone.

River runs, bare feet pounding on the grass, flying up the hill, and stops an inch from the buzz of light. She touches it gently, feeling prickles curl around her palm. Then she steps out of the universe.

It's night here, and the blue light shows her round stone pillars pointing toward the sky, the light like a web between them. She's standing on a platform, at the center of a bowl-shaped depression in the ground, and she sees more pillars spreading out in concentric rings up the slopes. The stone radiates cold age and bitter defeat; this place was beaten to the ground before Earth-That-Was raised its first great cities. It's a place of power and possibilities and connections, but now the dirt smells of old blood and sings for revenge. The air tastes the old death, and something else. Something new. Then the light between the pillars flickers out. River dances down the broken uneven steps that Kaylee tumbled down and finds her at the bottom. "Kaylee."

She's sitting on the pebbles, clutching her foot where pain radiates. "River," she says in relief, not to be alone in the dark. "What the hell happened? Where are we?"

And River smells it, hunting stink. "Quiet," she breathes, "There's hunting."

Kaylee makes a little noise then goes quiet, tries to still her panicked breath.

It's walking with the night. Nothing animal has ever been like this, because nothing animal hunts for pleasure and eats fear. There's a quarter moon, barely enough to see, and it touches something moving toward them, through the outer ring of pillars. They love fear, they feast on it, but they like courage too. Resistance, a little struggle, tastes sweet.

The moon touches silver and white and Kaylee sees enough to freeze in earnest. River knows Kaylee screamed when she fell, tumbling down the broken steps in the dark, and that it drew the attention of everything that hunts out here tonight. Kaylee whispers, "What is that thing?"

"Death," River says. It's too late to be quiet.

It's seen them.

Kaylee grabs her, thinking it can't see in the dark, that it can't feel their (her) fear. River pats her arm absently. "It's all right, they're coming."

It stalks toward them, and its mind is oddly simple for something that stands upright on two legs, wears clothes, carries an energy weapon. It's all burning hunger and desperate want and hot anticipation, and she can see it's connected to something else, to a lot of something elses, that the real thinking is done elsewhere. It should be easy to slip inside that simple mind, find ways, twist and break, crack, vessels swollen and bursting with blood, but it's moving fast and there's no time. River can outrun it in the dark, light as feathers now that (Miranda) isn't weighing her down, shouting in her head, but Kaylee can't.

And we don't leave men behind.

"Here!" River shouts, her voice hoarse in the cold. "We're here!"

A light cuts the dark, spears it, and Kaylee gets her first real look and can't help a little gasp-shriek of alarm. But its face is nowhere near as ugly as its (Hive mind). That might be the key. But its body quivers and jerks as bullets strike and it falls and River has no time to take it apart.

Pebbles skitter and crunch and they're here, sliding down the incline. "It's okay, it's okay," one whispers, "We've got you."

"What-- Who--" Kaylee says, her mind all skittery from the shock and the pain. More bullets in the dark, as he puts the last little sparks out so it can't come back, can't (regenerate) follow them to their burrow in the dark.

"They heard you scream, they came to help," River tells Kaylee, standing up, the pebbles scritching her feet. "She's hurt, she can't run," she tells them, and the one trying to pull Kaylee up leans down to wrap an arm around her waist instead.

Both of them get her up the slippery hill (fireman's carry), and River ghosts up after them. At the even ground at the top, the younger one, the one like a young wolf, stops to lift Kaylee in his arms. Kaylee understands they want to help now and cooperates, grabbing onto the slick material of his bulky vest, and it is safe, because little girls are pack, not prey. "Quick like bunnies," River urges him, and he runs into the dark.

The other waits, pounding heart, breath rasping, and Rivers waits with him, because he doesn't like to be alone either. She takes his hand and he flinches a little in surprise, but doesn't pull away and she quivers beside him. The last one scrambles up the incline toward them and he's the leader, which is only right, because he's the most efficient predator here. River says, "There's six more at three o'clock, two hundred yards away, and five on the other side, to box us in."

They look at each other by habit, though they can hardly see each other in the dark, and the leader mutters, "Crap."

Then they're running, their boots are quiet on the soft grass and River is light as gossamer. Mist and trees in the dark, they're running toward another mind, a quiet still mind that tastes of metal and crystal and air and light.

It's invisible until they're very close, and then the light is bright and sudden, blinding, and all the new close minds make a blend that she can't separate yet. There are three more wolves here, and others who are to-be-protected, and the little burrow (Shuttle? Ship? Gateship?) is crowded. There are people here who are closer than lovers, survival and comfort and protection and trust make a web so tight she can't see through it. They're all here, safe and sound, and she's handed back to the space in front of the cockpit, where Kaylee sits and shivers and holds her swelling ankle. River crouches next to her and Kaylee wraps an arm around her for comfort and to protect.

The one who ran with her (Rodney) stands beside the cockpit door, looking at the glittery screens that hang in mid-air. His mind is numbers and time and motion and the spaces between worlds, force-carrying field quanta, limitless, and River could float in it. He says, "The cruiser is still in low orbit near the gate. And she was right, they're all around us. If we take off, even cloaked--"

"We'll wait them out," the leader (Major) says. He's standing in the center of the ship, one hand braced on the rack overhead, the other on the gun that hangs around his neck. He's a solitary hunter, a big cat that leads a wolf pack, beautiful and lethal and all twisty contradictions. He's watching the sensor screens, the closed ramp of the little ship, and River and Kaylee, all at once while seeming to watch nothing.

"They aren't Alliance," River tells Kaylee, because the uniforms make Kaylee wonder, though it makes Kaylee feel better that there are other women here. One is another lovely predator, pack-mate to the others, wearing the gray and black that symbolizes that, and the surface of her mind is a well of calm stillness with the loss and pain and anger underneath. The other is small like River, wearing the blue and tan of the to-be-protected, and she's beautiful, like a flower carved out of ivory, all intricate layers woven with delicate precision, and her head is full of numbers and time as well.

"What were those things?" Kaylee asks helplessly. She sniffles and there are tears on her cheeks that she can't help, but her voice is mostly steady. "They didn't-- They weren't human?"

The female predator (Teyla) is startled. "You do not know of the Wraith?"

Kaylee shakes her head, numb. River explains, "They're hunting us, to eat. They're like Reavers, only they eat souls." Kaylee's eyes go even bigger. "They think they eat souls," River corrects herself, frowning. "It doesn't work like that, but they can't see it."

The young wolf (Aiden) looks from Kaylee to the Major, puzzled. "We didn't pick up any villages near here."

"Do you live nearby?" the small one made of ivory (Miko) asks gently.

Kaylee shakes her head. "Oh, no, we don't live here. Our ship just landed to pick up a cargo, only it was daylight, and River and I were walking and there was a flash--" She gestures helplessly. "Captain's gonna be pissed when he realizes we're gone."

"Your ship?" Rodney asks, and he throws a startled look at the Major. "What ship? A space ship?"

Kaylee nods, not understanding why they're so surprised. They're sitting here in a spaceship, aren't they? "Well, yeah. A Firefly class freighter."

"There was a singularity, a temporary one," River says. "Kaylee couldn't see it, and fell in, and I followed, and we fell into night and hunting. Fell out of our 'verse, into yours."

Rodney looks at her, almost into her head, all concentrated intensity. "You're saying you came from another universe, another space-time continuum?"

She tilts her head, because it's coming stronger now, from all of them, and mostly from the Major, and the metal-crystal mind of this little ship that's all intertwined with his. "A city can't be made of light and glass, and blood and bone all at one time. Death and bone and sinking into bloody water -- that's the past. Rising out of a clean sea, sunlight on water and colored glass -- that's the present. That's where they come from," she explains to Kaylee.

Kaylee wonders if they breed for pretty there, in the glass city, because even the ones that aren't all fierce and beautiful at once (the Major and Teyla) sure ain't hard on the eyes. Everybody else stares at River. Then Rodney turns to Kaylee and demands, "You're from another universe, and your sister's a telepath?"

"No. Yes. I don't know about the universe thing, and she's not my sister, but she is a reader.... Yes." Kaylee is anxious, because people are afraid of that kind of thing, and River ain't easy to explain. "It's not like she can read your mind or anything, she just knows things sometimes. Visions, like...." She gestures vaguely, not sure what to say, or how much. "Visions. She don't mean nothing by it."

"Oh, good," Rodney says, because this whole galaxy obviously hates them. "The people advanced enough to have spaceships and be blasé about telepaths live in another space-time continuum."

The Major is looking at River now, brow quirked. The blood-bone-glass-steel city is in his head, deflecting her, though he doesn't know he's doing it, and she can't get anything from him for a moment but a spark of appreciation for the chill perfection of her face. River squinches her nose at him and smiles.

"Is that a security risk?" a wolf asks. "I mean...." He shrugs, and his thoughts say _they're harmless_ and _the mind-reader girl is a little crazy._

"We'll change the codes when we get home," the Major says, like it hardly matters. He's watching the screens again.

Rodney feels his stomach clench, and knows if the Wraith keep coming this way, they won't be going home. But the cruiser is too low, and if they lift off, it'll catch them, cloak or not.

"But can we go back?" Kaylee asks, understanding now that things are even worse than they look. "Me and River? If we go back through those pillars will we be back at our ship?"

Everybody looks at Rodney and his hard mouth twists, and he looks away, and Miko knows the answer is maybe and maybe not. River answers for them, "Have to try and see."

"When the Wraith leave, we'll take you back to the ruin," the Major says, and puts the reassurance into it that Rodney can't, to calm Kaylee, and because if they're going to die horribly in the next half hour, there's no point in freaking out about not getting home. And she catches the thought, _because God knows this is no place for you._

_I don't know,_ River sends back, smiling inside her head, _I'm a weapon, too._

"Hey," he tells her, "Stop that." And the steel and glass city shuts her out again.

River sticks her tongue out.

"What kind of shuttle is this?" Kaylee asks desperately, to distract from River's strangeness.

"It is a ship of the Ancestors, to travel through the stargates," Teyla tells her, but most of her mind is outside the ship, on the hunting.

"Stargates?" Kaylee repeats. "What's a stargate?"

River lifts her head. _Hunting_ "They're coming. There's a lot of them. Too many to separate."

"She's right." Rodney's eyes are on the glittery screens that count lives. Death is coming. "They're closing in."

"You can hear them?" Teyla asks River.

"Can they hear you?" the Major asks on top of that.

"They aren't human enough," River answers, "There's no reciprocity." Teyla has a scrap of those things inside her, though she doesn't know it yet, and really, it's such a tiny scrap, and River's still got worse things in her head than a tiny scrap of other.

No one speaks, and the quiet fills with fear sweat, quiet despair, until Rodney says, "They're headed right for us. They'll walk right into our cloak."

The wolves shift silently, some facing the ramp-door, some the viewport. Teyla stands, graceful as Inara, and moves to the Major, putting her back to his. Rodney pulls Miko off the bench, pushes her down beside River and Kaylee, then stands over her. Kaylee gives up and buries her face against Miko's back. The ship's crystal mind shifts, ready, and River knows that the Major can fire its weapons with a thought, but the fighting will be close-quarters and the drones won't do much good. Miko takes the pistol out of the holster and holds it in her lap, thinking of how many bullets are in it, would she have time to reload, and they've told her about saving the last bullet for herself, but leaving two girls here to face the end alone seems like cowardice. River sways over to reach the pistol, and clicks the safety off. "Thank you," Miko whispers.

"Dō itashimashite," River whispers back, and doesn't tell her not to count the bullets, because the Major will kill them himself before he'll let the Wraith take them.

The hunting is close now, and River sits up on her knees, listening, feeling, poking and turning. The (hive mind) can't feel her back, so she's free to do as she wants, and she falls inside a little until she can almost taste the sour metallic taint of their blood. For many of them, their thoughts are simple _hunger want hunt_ but one is a little different. He knows these humans are different, he knows to look for invisible ships, he can almost taste their defiance, sweet as honey....

River's darkness bubbles up like laughter. _You like fear? Have some._ River slips inside, and bends.

She feels him clutch his head as the pain staggers him, slip to his knees on the cold ground. The others stop. Weakness is always punished, weakness means being taken to feed the others.

River doesn't want him to die here, though with a mind so exposed and simple it would be easy. Dying here would just draw attention to their burrow. She lets him stand, lets him take two more steps, then bends again.

That's it. Weakness is this way, strength is that way.

She bends, back and forth, gentle and not so gentle. He turns without knowing it, shifting direction without knowing it, leading the mindless ones away from the place that makes him hurt.

Rodney isn't looking at the screens anymore, he's looking at the Major, and it's the Major that says, "They're moving off."

Everyone breathes again, cautiously. The Major is watching her, as River sways down to lean against Kaylee's side. He's wondering if she did that, and he knows she can probably hear him wonder.

She yawns. _I'll never tell._

  
***

  
In the end, when the hunters tire of searching and leave through the portal in the sky, the hardest part is to get Kaylee and her injured foot up the hill in the dark to the pillars. Two of the wolves manage it without dropping her or falling, and Kaylee is still torn between fear that they can't go home and wanting to flirt while there's a chance.

River waits at the top with Rodney and the Major. They know the singularity is here, because their tools show it, big splot of disconnected energy where no energy should be. Rodney says, sarcastic to disguise his seriousness, "So? Got any words of advice? Because if someone had said 'don't give the freaky Amish people C-4, they're evil' at the right moment, it would have come in handy."

The Major deliberately thinks loud enough for her to hear, and she asks, "What's a wooden nickel?"

She can feel Rodney glare at him. "Oh, funny. Mock me via the strange girl telepath, that's mature."

Kaylee's ready at the top, balancing carefully. "River? Should we try?"

River steps to her side. She gives the best advice she has. "Don't get caught."

Kaylee is muttering, "I'm gonna feel really stupid if nothing happens. What if you're wrong and--" River shoves her lightly, stepping through after her into light, and home, and _Serenity_.

  
**end**


End file.
